


Arthur Nightingale

by Pink_Dalek



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Arthur is a Surprisingly Capable Nurse, Gen, Sick Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 05:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_Dalek/pseuds/Pink_Dalek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin and Douglas are both ill on a flight. Arthur is surprisingly good at looking after them.<br/>From a prompt on the CP Meme</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arthur Nightingale

“Another box of tissues?” Arthur offered. Martin started to thank him, but a sneeze cut him off. On the other side of the cockpit, Douglas was trying unsuccessfully to hack up a lung for the third time in an hour. Carolyn had refused to come along on the flight, stating that she didn’t want to catch whatever plague her pilots were tossing back and forth. She wasn’t pleased that Arthur had insisted on coming along.

“It’s only cargo. They can fend for themselves.”

“Mum, someone’s got to fix their tea and their lunch.” 

“On your head be it. When you’ve caught their virus, I’m not setting foot in your part of the house.”

Arthur had made a last-minute dash to Boots and apparently cleaned out their cold & flu aisle, as well as their tissue section. “I got some other things for you, too,” he’d told them. “Sometimes a bad cold, the kind with lots of yucky oozy stuff, makes my tummy go a little funny.” Martin had thanked him gratefully. He usually had to ration out his cold medicine due to the expense, and he never splurged on the extra-soft tissues with lotion in them.

“You’re due for more decongestant, Skip. And Douglas, I think you need another dose of cough syrup.”

“I’d rather have another cup of tea with lemon.”

“You can have that, too—after the cough syrup.”

“How do you think he’s keeping track of the meds?” Douglas rasped after Arthur had left the flight deck.

“Haven’t you seen the galley? He’s got a sheet of paper with a column for each of us, and he’s writing down everything he gives us and when. And everything’s lined up on the counter in alphabetical order. It reminds me of my mum when all three of us kids got the flu at the same time.”

Arthur was in and out of the cockpit during the flight to Toronto with medicine, tissues, and tea. 

“Chicken soup, chaps!” he announced midway through. “It’s out of a can, but Mum told me not to do anything other than heat it up.”

Toronto was rainy and cold when they arrived. Martin and Douglas were exhausted and even more congested with the changes in air pressure and several hours of breathing dry air. Martin could barely breathe, his sinuses ached, and Douglas was on the verge of losing his voice as well as his composure.

“Carolyn’s put us all in the same room,” he groused when he returned from the front desk at the little hotel.

“But that’s brilliant! I can look after both of you.” Arthur shepherded them upstairs to a surprisingly clean, airy room with two double beds and a rollaway cot. “Showers and pjs first, chaps!” Martin didn’t need to be told twice, desperate to unclog his head at least a little. When he finished, Douglas was curled up on one of the beds and refused to move.

“Come on, Douglas. You’ll feel so much better after a shower,” Arthur coaxed. “And then we can order room service and watch telly.” A chesty cough was the only response. Arthur took an arm and attempted to drag him, but Douglas was dead weight.

“My head hurts, my chest hurts, and I’m exhausted. Just leave me alone and let me die in peace.”

“Not in your uniform. You won’t be comfortable, and it’ll be all wrinkled for the flight home tomorrow.” Arthur retrieved Douglas’s pyjamas from his suitcase. “Sit up. Come on, up.”

Martin tried very hard not to giggle at the sight of Arthur changing Douglas into his pjs like a tired child. “Arm, please. Okay, other arm. Head through the neck hole. There, doesn’t that feel better?” he asked, drawing the blanket over Douglas at last. A grumbling sort of groan was the response.

“You’ll never guess what else I got at Boots,” Arthur said, disappearing into the bathroom. They could hear water running.

“It had better not be a board game of Charades,” Douglas grumbled, eyes closed.

“Hot-water bottles!”

Martin, blowing his nose for what seemed like the millionth time that day, visibly melted. “I haven’t had one of these in ages. My old one started leaking last winter and I had to bin it. Thanks, Arthur.”

Arthur tucked the second one up against Douglas, who was curled up on his side, getting a grateful-sounding groan in response. Both pilots dozed off for an hour. Arthur had also gotten a couple of puzzle books for himself to pass the time quietly while they slept. When they awoke, he dosed them with more cold medicines and let them look at the room service menu.

“Just my luck: Carolyn springs for room service, and the only thing that appeals is soup and toast,” Martin rasped.

“There’s a really good sushi place about a half-mile from here,” Douglas told him. “And I couldn’t even taste it if I could get there.”

“It’ll be there next time. We’re in Toronto a lot,” Arthur told him reassuringly. “Try the soup and toast, at least. And a nice lemon custard for afters? It’ll soothe your throat.”

“Where did he learn to be so good at mumming?” Martin asked as soon as Arthur was out of earshot. 

Douglas and Martin were both asleep for the night not long after nine. Arthur slept with one eye open, waking Douglas for another dose of cough syrup when his coughing worsened and dosing Martin with nose-spray when he started snoring, rewarming their hot-water bottles and refilling the water glasses on the nightstand without waking them. Martin was running a slight fever and started muttering restlessly about Gerti a little after two AM, so Arthur wrung out a flannel in cool water and wiped off his face.

“Mmmm? Wha?”

“Shhh, Skip, it’s okay,” Arthur whispered back. “Just cooling you off a little.” Martin fell back to sleep within moments.

By contrast, Douglas started shivering with chills. Arthur called down to the front desk, quietly asking for extra blankets. Sometime before dawn, he woke up to find Douglas had pushed off the extra blankets and was sleeping deeply.

Martin woke for the day a little after eight. He was still stuffy and snuffly, but his sinuses were much less congested and painful. He covered a cough and looked around the room. Douglas was absolutely limp and still, one big hand dangling off the bed, breathing deeply. Arthur was curled up on the rollaway cot, peacefully asleep. There were faint shadows under his eyes, and Martin had dim, sleepy memories of Arthur looking after him during the night. It had been years since anyone had looked after him during an illness. The students tried, tromping up and down the stairs with tea and toast, but they barely knew how to look after themselves.

He tiptoed to the bathroom, showering to wash off the lingering sense of sweaty stickiness from being ill, dressing in his uniform shirt and trousers. When he padded out into the main room in his socks, he found a sleep-rumpled Arthur looking up at him from the cot.

“How are you feeling, Skip?” he whispered.

“Much better. Thanks for looking after me.”

“No problem. I love helping people.”

“I hope you don’t catch this.”

Arthur shrugged. “Colds don’t usually bother me. It’s no fun being sick, but it’s nice to hang out in pjs all day watching telly.” He got up and went into the bathroom for his own shower.

Douglas opened gummy eyes in the dim room. Rolling over with a cough, he found Martin already up and dressed and flipping through the menu. “Survived the night, I see,” he rasped.

“How do you feel?”

“Like a dozen lorries ran over me. You?”

“Better than yesterday. I should be able to handle most of the flight, let you get a bit more rest.”

Arthur emerged dressed for the day and promptly started checking Douglas over, dosing him with cold medicine and cough syrup. Then it was Martin’s turn for meds, while Douglas took a shower that helped open his head and soothe his chest more than he expected. Even so, the energy needed to shave and dress left him wanting to crawl back into bed and sleep for a few more hours.   
They ordered a light breakfast from room service, and a bit of toast and orange juice perked Douglas up enough to get to the airport and get Gerti off the ground. Then Martin put on his most Captainly voice and sent him back to rest in the passenger cabin. Douglas didn’t even have the energy to tease him about it.

“Douglas? Douglas, wake up,” Arthur was shaking his shoulder gently.

Douglas opened his eyes and looked up at the steward blearily. “Do I need to help Martin land the plane?”

“Nope. We’ve already landed. It was really gentle, so you slept through it.”

Douglas threw off the blanket Arthur had draped over him while he slept and wobbled into the cockpit. “You could have wakened me,” he groused hoarsely.

“Arthur took a photo of you with his phone. We decided you looked too cute to wake, curled up like that.” At Douglas’s rheumy glare, he corrected himself. “Okay, okay. We decided you really needed your sleep, and I seem to be on the mend.” That photo was going to be permanently hidden from their First Officer.

“I’ll at least go through the post-landing checklist with you.”

Out in the passenger cabin, they could hear Arthur opening the door. “Hi Mum!”

“Hello, Arthur. Are they both alive?”

“Yes. Skip is loads better. Douglas is still pretty tired though, and I think he’s going to need something stronger for his chest.”

Arthur went into the galley and started collecting things. When Martin and Douglas left the plane, he handed each of them a bag with cold supples. “The sinus and head congestion medicines are for you, Skip, along with three boxes of the tissues with lotion you like. Douglas, you’ve got the chest decongestants and cough medicine and some tissues, but I think you should see your GP if you’re still congested tomorrow. It’s trying to settle in your chest.”

“I still want to know how Arthur got so good at looking after sick people,” Martin said as he and Douglas trudged out to their cars.

_One week later: ___

__Carolyn gave an annoyed huff of a sigh as she heard Arthur coughing upstairs. “I told that boy not to go near them, the clot,” she muttered as she emerged from her comfortable nest under a thick throw in the corner of the overstuffed sofa. There was a definite note of affection woven into the annoyance. Her favorite mystery writer had just released a new novel, and this was the first chance she’d had to curl up with it._ _

__When she opened the door to Arthur’s bedroom, he was huddled under a pile of blankets. The nightstand was covered with cold medicines, a tissue box, and a glass of water. He opened dull brown eyes when she rested her hand on his brow. “Sorry, Mum.”_ _

__“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Carolyn checked the list of medicines on the nightstand. It was a trick she’d learned as a nervous young mum with a sick baby, terrified of accidentally overdosing him on something. She’d watched the doctors and nurses keep track of everything on Arthur’s chart when he’d been briefly hospitalized with severe flu at six months, and had thought what worked for them could work for her._ _

__She checked his temperature and noted it. Then she re-filled his water bottle with hot water, and brought a thermal carafe of cold water for him to drink. “Would you like one of the fruit ice lollies?”_ _

__“Yes, please. Lemon?"_ _

__She poked ice lollies, chicken soup, and water into Arthur at regular intervals, returning to her book while he slept. He was an easy patient, quiet and uncomplaining, the polar opposite of the oversized baby Gordon had always turned into at the first sniffle. Checking on him while he slept, she gently stroked his fringe from his forehead. When he was asleep, she could still see traces of the rosy, chubby-cheeked little boy he’d been. It was getting rare to have the chance to mother him like this anymore. Arthur was, in his own way, getting more and more self-sufficient as he matured. And someday, some horsey girl with an Alice band and a name like a Labrador retriever was going to take over the care and management of Arthur, leaving Carolyn to dote from afar._ _

__She dropped a kiss on his temple and tiptoed from the room, easing the door half-shut behind her, returning to her book with ears tuned to the slightest noise from Arthur’s room. ‘Once a mum, always a mum,’ she thought._ _

__She wouldn’t have it any other way._ _


End file.
